<p>So here's my friends situation. She is a prospective chemical engineering major who has been accepted at:</p>
<p>Ohio State honors (collegium probably) with a full scholarship (national merit finalist) that covers tuition, room and board, and all cost and gives a stipend (which she doesn't need since her parents are well off) of 4,500 a year.</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>Stanford-- nearly full price</p>
<p>Her parents are willing to pay full price at Stanford but only if it is necessary. She says she will probably go to grad school (grad/med/business) and may change her major. She really wants to go to Stanford since its been her dream since like 1st grade and fits her perfectly but doesn't want to give up the awesome scholarship. O and she is planning to work in the oil industry once she gets out of school.</p>
<p>Basically, she is asking me to ask CC to give her some advice for what she would do.</p>
<p>BTW, I also posted this in the engineering forum, but i thought that there would be more responses here.</p>
<p>For the sake of completeness, and so other posters can evaluate my ideas, I will quote my post in the other thread:</p>
<p>You're looking at a price difference of $52,000+ (don't forget about the rise in tuition/housing prices) a year for 4 years.</p>
<p>That's $210,000-$230,000 right there.</p>
<p>I know a lot of people on CC keep tuition second to prestige, but take a moment and ponder how much money that is. Given the average salary of ChemE's, she could take 3 years off of work with the money she saved.</p>
<p>It's not like OSU is some unranked community college. It is a full fledged state university with an engineering program ranked just below those of UCLA, Columbia, and RPI.</p>
<p>My cousin's girlfriend was actually put in a similar situation. She was a ChemE student who chose to start out at a community college and transfered to her local state school (she was perfectly qualified for higher level schools, she just wanted to save her family some money). She landed a great job when she graduated and now her company is PAYING her to attend Stanford's Graduate ChemE program.</p>
<p>Go to Ohio State... they money that your friend will save will help her pay for graduate school (although it is a lot easier to get scholarships for grad school). And if she ends up going to medical school, she's going to need it.</p>
<p>In a case like this, the parents have to decide. You are talking about a tremendous amount of money. Obviously, Stanford is the better school, but it's not "necessary" in any way to go there. </p>
<p>I knew someone in this situation, he went to the full-ride and his parents cut him a check each year for half of what they would have spent. ;-)</p>
<p>Assuming she stays with Chem E (one of the more difficult engineering majors IMHO), she should have excellent job prospects after graduation. That is a plus. This is a toughie - OSU and Stanford are both good schools, but I do not think Stanford is "worth" $200K more, especially if grad school is likely. (And I say that as someone who attended an expensive name-brand engineering school!)</p>
<p>One thing I would do is contact the Stanford financial aid office and explain they are competing for her against a free ride at OSU. If they want her badly enough, they may come up with enough merit aid tol make them financially more attractive. She and her parents should have a target number in mind to judge what Stanford might offer. It is worth a shot.</p>
<p>^ Agreed. But the big IF is will she stick to chemical engineering? If she does, very little premium will be paid to a Stanford ChemE vs. OSU ChemE...both will be in fantastic demand.</p>
<p>Stanford did announce financial aid changes for family income lower than $100k (I think). Does this make a difference for your friend?</p>
<p>im going through the same thing and it sucks (emory vs. ga honors). i got a LOT of similar responses to my thread but because i know what this girls going through i have to say that she should go to stanford. if her parents are willing to pay for it, she should utilize this advantage and go to the school. no offense to osu but i do a LOT of college research pretaining to engineering and science (because that is also what i want to go into) and ive never heard anything great about it. the opportunities presented to a stanford grad would be so much more plentiful and there would probably be a lot of jobs willing to pay for her grad school if she does well enough in undergrad. plus, i know how hard it is to turn away a dream school. im going to end up paying 48 k as opposed to nothing, but for me its just worth it. my share of the tuition is apprx. 10k a year and thats worth it to me to accomplish my dream. </p>
<p>i think its much easier said than done to give advice to go to osu. shed really regret not going to stanford...</p>
<p>Not enough info. to offer good advice. Based on the posted info., I think that Stanford University is the better option. The parents can afford Stanford (as written in the original post) and if they couldn't afford it, then Stanford would most likely award financial aid. Stanford is the student's dream school. Many affluent families would donate much more than the cost of four years tuition just to allow their son or daughter to attend Stanford. OSU's Honors Program is strong, however. Really depends upon info. that is not provided.</p>
<p>I sorta agree with lauren. Turning down Stanford for Ohio State is kinda insane on the surface. Just realize that $150k-200k debt will tarnish that Stanford degree somewhat and be a huge financial drag for her dreams. If her parents can afford it, or are willing to go into debt and jeopardize their retirement...more power to 'em.</p>
<p>That stanford degree will only matter for maybe two or 3 years, as she is planning on going to grad school.</p>
<p>
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i think its much easier said than done to give advice to go to osu. shed really regret not going to stanford...
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It is also much easier said than done to give advice to spend $230,000 to go to stanford, especially since the name brand of that degree will only affect her pay for a couple of years (since she plans on doing grad school).</p>
<p>I know it seems crazy to reject stanford, but I really think she will regret spending 210k+ once she graduates.</p>
<p>How well off is your friend? Being exempted from stanford's financial aid isn't that hard to do. If you make $100,000 a year or more, you don't get much, right? Even with a middle class to upper middle class income, saving 210-230k would be a financial blessing for the family.</p>
<p>The only exception would be if her parents made something like $600,000 a year or more. In that case, I think it worth going to stanford.</p>
<p>It really depends how well of your friend's family is. If spending $200k over 4 years does not impact the family too greatly, I would definitely recommend Stanford. However, most of us would feel the pinch spending $200k= over years. If her family is like most of us, I would recommend she save the money and go to OSU.</p>
<p>Chemical engineering undergrads make more money than most people straight out of college. You can probably get $75K/year if you're willing to move.</p>
<p>but how long will it take her to pay off her loans if she only makes 75K a year... middle class/well off can mean a lot of things. But most likely, her parent or she will need to take out loans. And if she goes to grad school, she will be accumulating even more loans. It is not easy to pay off huge chunks of money. Also... does she have younger siblings? will her going to Stanford affect her brothers/sister's education. If her parents funnel their savings into paying for her college tuition at Stanford, it may mean that her younger siblings (if she has them....) won't have the choice she has right now. They will be limited to state schools or will have to hope for merit scholarships</p>
<p>I agree with the Ohio State option. 200K vs. ZERO is just too big a gap considering Ohio State has very strong Chemistry and Chem Engineering departments with strong rankings, multiple National Academy faculty members, strong undergrad research opportunities and great job/grad school placement.</p>
<p>Should she change majors, Ohio State has very good breadth of quality. A top ranked business school along with strong arts, sciences and humanities programs.</p>
<p>Ohio State isn't Stanford. I won't pretend that it is. On the other hand I don't believe a Stanford education is worth 200K more than an Ohio State education.</p>
I agree with the Ohio State option. 200K vs. ZERO is just too big a gap considering Ohio State has very strong Chemistry and Chem Engineering departments with strong rankings, multiple National Academy faculty members, strong undergrad research opportunities and great job/grad school placement.
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I completely agree. Also don't forget, it isn't 200k vs zero, it's 200k vs -18k, as she will actually be paid to go to Ohio state (even though the family doesn't need the stipend, an extra 18k is a fine deal).</p>